SpaceX fishes Starship Super Heavy booster out of the sea (photo)

[Admin]

SpaceX has retrieved from the sea the first-stage booster that flew on its latest Starship test flight, which launched this past June.

SpaceX fishes Starship Super Heavy booster out of the sea (photo) : Read more

 

[James Parker]

Guess that booster isn't getting reused anytime soon.

But it might belong in a museum.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Seems like a lot of damage for a "complete success", which I read was getting to zero velocity at zero altitude. Of course, landing back at the launch pad would have it basically hovering some distance above the pad so that it could be caught by the "chopsticks". And, maybe the rocket motors were still firing when it landed in the Gulf, which might have made a lot of damage when their exit nozzles encountered the water surface. Are there any videos that show the lower end of SuperHeavy reaching the water surface?

 

[BrianR]

Merely a few scratches, it'll be as right as rain in no time.

 

[4eyedbuzzard]

They've had worse. It's just a flesh wound.

 

[Dan_W]

Seems like a lot of damage for a "complete success", which I read was getting to zero velocity at zero altitude. Of course, landing back at the launch pad would have it basically hovering some distance above the pad so that it could be caught by the "chopsticks". And, maybe the rocket motors were still firing when it landed in the Gulf, which might have made a lot of damage when their exit nozzles encountered the water surface. Are there any videos that show the lower end of SuperHeavy reaching the water surface?

Most, if not all of that damage was probably from impact with the ocean floor.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Most, if not all of that damage was probably from impact with the ocean floor.

That doesn't seem probable to me. Remember, the spent stage is mostly big, hollow tanks. I don't know much about the sea floor where it landed, but its depth and the type of material on the bottom would seem to be important parameters for predicting impact velocity (through water) and effects of impacting the bottom. Maybe crush depth had something to do with it. As Blue Origin found out the hard way, it isn't hard to crush a rocket stage with even small external differential pressures (like taking it from sunny outdoor Florida into an air conditioned hanger).

 

[Dan_W]

That doesn't seem probable to me...

I see 2 possibilities. First, the big hollow tanks probably ruptured and filled with water when the booster fell over after "landing" allowing it to sink. Add the 33 Raptors and you have 350,000 - 440,000 lbs (Elon estimate in interview with Tim Dodd) sinking Raptor side down due to CG until impact with the seafloor. The onboard cameras did show the booster still intact after engine shutdown.

The other possibility, and more likely now that I think of it, is when the booster fell over after the water landing the tanks ruptured and the vehicle exploded. Much like the early failed F9 landing attempts. SpaceX cut off video just after engine shutdown so we never saw what happened after that.

Just my $0.02 (which is $0.02 more than my opinion is worth )

 

[Unclear Engineer]

An explosion of the tanks' remaining propellants does seem to be a reasonable possibility. Without somehow filling those large tanks almost completely with water, would a SuperHeavy booster even sink?

The tanks are 30' in diameter and hold 7,500,000 lbs of propellants. An air bubble only 10' high in one tank should displace something like 450,000 lbs of salty seawater. That should be enough to float the 440,000 dry weight of the SuperHeavy booster. So, I am thinking that the tanks must have split open in order for the booster to sink very fast.